


Death, Like Life, Is Temporary

by Kendrickhier



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alura/Lucy mention, Artificial Intelligence, Death, F/F, Happy Ending, Kara Danvers appearance, Temporary Death, Virtual Reality, just look at the title okay IT’S OKAY TRUST ME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 23:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14147142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrickhier/pseuds/Kendrickhier
Summary: She was supposed to be dead, but she isn’t. Artificial Intelligence AU in which Alex doesn’t remember what happened.





	Death, Like Life, Is Temporary

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [GDMonthly6](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/GDMonthly6) collection. 



The first thing she sees are two women, standing near her.

One of them has her expression schooled to near perfection, but there is something shining in those green eyes of hers that makes it not quite neutral. There is a vulnerability there, perhaps hope, or some kind of longing; she’s not entirely sure what it is. Long brown loose curls fall onto stiff shoulders, two strands of white standing out in stark contrast, muscles tense beneath a tight dark green long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans that might as well have been painted on. She thinks the woman might be around 50, maybe a bit younger, maybe a bit older—it’s hard to tell.

The other is much more open, gaping at her with something akin to shock, a similar vulnerability but much more outspoken, and hope, so much hope and love that it shakes her. She’s the same height as the other woman, blonde curls instead of the other woman’s brown ones, wearing a white lab coat that is vaguely familiar to her upon sight and certainly doesn’t belong to the blonde. She’s younger, in her 30s perhaps.

It’s the older one that speaks up first, tone almost hesitant, but clearly forced to be steady. “Do you remember who you are?”

She blinks, has to think about that, and she’s sure there’s a frown on her face while she’s thinking because she can practically see the hope fade and make place for a deep, deep sadness instead, grief and loss, and it pains her to see that on the younger woman. This woman cares about her, clearly, and she knows that feeling to be mutual.

But then it hits her, and her face relaxes somewhat. “Alex,” she finally responds after a few endless seconds. “I’m Alex Danvers.”

And just like that the hope returns full force in the blonde’s eyes, now shining not with sadness but with relief of some kind. She can see the older woman squeeze her shoulder, and Alex knows it to be a warning: don’t get your hopes up.

That message would perhaps be clearer if Alex couldn’t see the hope in her eyes, too.

“Do you remember who we are?” she asks then, and damn if her tone didn’t gave away just a bit of that hope. It’s subtle, and most people wouldn’t notice, but Alex isn’t most people.

She looks at the blonde first, and a smile blooms on Alex’s face when remembering her seems to be a lot easier than remembering her own name, before. “You’re my sister,” she says, and oh, the response that elicits, the joy that radiates from her, the relief, but so, so many tears. “Of course I remember you, Kara.”

“Alex,” Kara chokes out, and looks like she’s about to wrap her up in one of her familiar spine-crushing hugs, but clearly holds herself back.

She must have taken quite a beating if Kara isn’t even trying to touch her.

“And I?” That vulnerability is so evident, so clearly on display that even Kara notices it now and reaches out for her.

Alex takes a good look at her, scanning her memory to figure out who she is, and she stiffens somewhat when she remembers, immediately on guard. “General Astra,” she says, and it has an immediate effect on the woman. Her eyes, those pale green eyes that speak so much more than she probably wills them to, they betray some kind of hurt.

Why?

Kara’d gasped, and she’s the one that asks the next question, this time. “What is the last thing you remember, Alex?” She sounds so small, almost scared now, and Alex doesn’t understand.

“I...” She digs deep in her memory, tries to get out the most recent information, tries to get an explanation for the context of the situation, aside from the fact that she’d clearly gotten hurt somehow, and that she’d worried Kara. And maybe Astra as well? Why was Astra here? Last she remembers... “I remember stabbing her,” she says pointedly as she looks at Astra. “I remember her dying, I remember...” Alex looks at Kara, and there’s so much guilt that she feels then. “I remember you crying. She died, I killed her, and I was so scared I’d lose you if you knew...”

Kara doesn’t look angry with her, doesn’t look shocked at the revelation, so clearly she already knew that. But she does look sad, almost pained when she looks at Astra then, hugging her and whispering an apology, and once again Alex doesn’t understand.

Why is Astra the one that needs to be consoled? Isn’t she the enemy?

How is she alive?

“What happened?” Alex dares to ask then, because she’s tired of not knowing. She knows she’s missed out on things, that much is clear, or maybe she can’t remember them, but either way she doesn’t know what’s going on.

The general shakes her head, and sad eyes lock onto hers. “Maybe you’ll remember in time. Rest now, brave one.”

And Alex wants to argue, but she really is quite tired. Her brain shuts down seemingly without effort.

\-----

The next time it is just Astra who she sees, the general in front of her, shrouded in darkness. She doesn’t know where she is, but she doesn’t feel like she’s moved from her position the last time Astra and Kara were here. “Do you remember anything more?” she asks, and this time her tone is almost desperate.

Alex doesn’t understand the desperation, and digging through her memory this time doesn’t clear anything up, because it’s just the same things she could remember last time. It’s getting more than a little frustrating now. “No.”

Her head dips in acknowledgment, and she takes a ragged breath, before Astra manages to center herself once again. She looks back at Alex. “Then I bet you have questions. You can ask me.”

Astra isn’t wrong; Alex has questions, a ton of them, so many that she’s not sure where to start, and she nods. The one at the forefront of her mind, the most glaringly obvious one, comes out first. “How are you alive?”

She can’t quite read the woman’s expression this time, but she thinks there may be some amusement there. Amusement, and something else... Fondness, maybe? She did mention she liked Alex once, a long time ago. “I was brought back to life by an organization that calls itself Cadmus. Do you remember anything about them?”

A shake of her head.

Something darkens in Astra’s expression then, when she starts her explanation. “They were a particularly heinous group, experimenting on humans and aliens alike, supposedly for the good of humanity. They were looking to create weapons to ‘defend’ themselves, tried to use me in a similar manner.” She sneers, but shakes her head then, seeming to attempt to physically shake it off. “You—the DEO saved me from them, brought me back to the light.”

A surge of protective anger surfaced at the idea of them experimenting on Astra, trying to weaponize her; it’s so intense and unexpected that it shakes Alex to her core, and a growl tears from her throat. She doesn’t understand where that came from, but it seems to make Astra smile ever so slightly, and it eases that urge to find those people and beat them to within an inch of their lives. If that were even possible; she didn’t miss how Astra spoke of them in the past tense, she’s probably taken care of them already. Or they had, together.

She didn’t miss the slip either, and how it implied she, specifically, saved Astra, not the DEO in general, but that Alex was involved. That, that is something that makes sense to her when she thinks about it: with the sheer amount of guilt she was feeling over killing her, it’s no wonder she’d try to save her when getting the news that she is still alive.

Alex may not remember it, but she’s glad she’s at the very least partially responsible for Astra’s rescue.

But that still doesn’t really explain why Astra is here, and why Astra seems to care about her. She can’t shake the image of how hurt she’d looked at Alex’s seeming lack of memories, of how Kara’d tried to console her immediately, instinctively, and how they’d clearly grown closer since then.

“Why are you here?”

Alex closes her eyes at how that question came out. Perhaps a more subtle phrasing would have been better, but she can’t remember Astra being anything but an enemy to her, and it was out before she could think better of it.

Astra for her part, Alex notices when she opens her eyes again, doesn’t seem to take offense, instead looks strangely endeared and soft and, like before, vulnerable. “Because I love you, Alex.” Her answer is so genuine when it comes out, it almost takes her breath away.

“You love me?” Alex breathes out, astonished.

At the responding nod she’s speechless for a moment, Astra’s eyes filled with such an intensely pained fondness.

Something tells her this is far from the first time Astra has told her about those feelings. Alex is obviously suffering from some kind of amnesia, that much is more than clear, but to forget something like Astra loving her, something so significant to both their lives? How many memories is she missing, exactly?

Was she only missing a matter of weeks, all of this new and intense and rapidly developing?

Several months maybe, to give it more time to settle into something more comfortable?

Or was it years, missing out on a longstanding relationship with the woman she used to consider an enemy, which felt as recently as yesterday? Considering the lack of giddiness or nervousness, the lack of hesitation and just how certain that declaration had felt, this felt like the more likely option. It would explain those feelings residing inside of her as well, the ones that are there without their memories attached. That protective surge of anger before, how unsettling it was to see Astra needing comfort from Kara of all people, the fact that she cared at all...

The silence evidently lingered too long; the emotions drained from Astra’s face, briefly passing through something more pained as she schooled them, shaking her head as she prepared to take her leave. “This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have told you that, it’s too soon, I... I should go.”

“No, wait!”

Astra froze in her tracks, standing there and looking at her almost impassively, but Alex could see that smidgen of hope flicker, like a lone star on a cloudy night.

“Astra, I... I love you too.” It felt too much like a first admission of feelings, the way it came out of her mouth more meek than it had any right to, much more vulnerable than it was supposed to be, but the words felt as foreign as they felt familiar to say. “I don’t remember loving you, but I can feel it. It’s... Not everything is lost.”

A puff of breath leaves Astra, the beginnings of that facade dropping as quickly as they’d been thrown up. The realization that she isn’t dealing with a hostile Alex allows her to be vulnerable again, to be open; memories aside, this is still her Alex, the Alex that loves her. A small smile blooms on her face in lieu of it. “That’s good. Memory gaps can be filled, but feelings...” She doesn’t finish that sentence, but Alex understands. Memories are just stories that can be relayed, you can talk someone through them, but you can’t talk someone into loving you again.

“Speaking of memory gaps... What year is it?”

And just like that the mood shifts. Astra goes from somewhat hopeful to uncertain, anxious almost, and Alex can feel her stomach dropping at the change. That doesn’t look particularly promising. “Are you certain you wish to know now? You may not like the answer, maybe you’ll remember more in time—“

“Astra,” she cuts her off. “Just tell me.”

She swallows heavily, but that’s the only sign of hesitation Astra allows herself to show before answering her. “It is 2081.”

Eyes widen. Alex is aware she is gaping, but how could she not? “I’m missing more than six decades?!” Calculations are running rapidly through her head, her mind racing a mile a minute. “That would mean I’d be, like, 92 years old. I don’t feel that old, I don’t sound that old, why is that? Did we find a way to rejuvenate our DNA or am I just that high on drugs?” She attempts to joke, grinning somewhat. Whatever they were giving her is certainly top of the line, as she hasn’t felt even an inkling of pain since waking up in this state. Hell, she barely felt her body at all, but what little she could feel felt as youthful as she remembers it to be.

At Astra’s silence as she’s trying to figure this out, Alex frowns. Maybe the Kryptonian just didn’t care too much for jokes at a time like this? She makes a mental note to get to know her as well as she used to know her again, with what time she has left to live alongside her. Alex may have been able to understand her motivations, but it’s becoming very obvious that doesn’t mean she knows Astra as a person.

But the silence lingers, and the serious expression doesn’t change, and it’s becoming unsettling. “Astra... What happened to me?”

She says nothing as she reaches for Alex’s hand, and her gaze follows suit. Alex isn’t sure what she was expecting, perhaps thought physical affection was just part of the deal with Astra, especially considering their first encounter already involved Astra stroking her face, but she knows this isn’t it: Astra’s hand phases right through hers, and it’s only now she notices that her hand has an unnatural pale blue glow to it. In fact, all of her body has that glow to it.

How did she miss that?

Moreover, how did she miss the fact that she has been standing up this entire time, not lying in a bed as she should be after sustaining an injury?

Her breathing becomes more rapid, but it doesn’t make her head swim like it’s supposed to, the panic seizing her not having any effect except mental as she doesn’t need oxygen, doesn’t need any vital functions, doesn’t need a heart to beat. “This is... I am...” Alex can’t stop looking at her hands, at the unsettling holographic sight of it, and she’s aware she’s shaking, she’s aware it’s purely psychological, that she can make it stop by merely willing it, but how could she make it stop when she’s not alive, when she is _dead_?

She’s dead, except she isn’t, because she’s right here with Astra, without her memories, without her body, but she is here. She’s not a ghost, she can’t move from her spot, can’t roam like they supposedly would be able to, but Astra can see her, anyone coming in here can see her, unlike ghosts, if they exist. During her life time she wasn’t much of a believer, but she’s seen crazier things and it wouldn’t have surprised her.

Alex takes a deep, centering breath, and she knows it doesn’t matter, but if everything is psychological there is something to be said for the placebo effect; even without lungs it’s something that helps calm her down, and the shaking stops. She finally tears her gaze back to Astra, and she doesn’t know what to think about this, nor how to feel about it.

Mercifully, Astra doesn’t need any prompting to start talking. “You died of old age,” she starts, stating the most obvious, but it needs saying. It makes sense now, why Astra and Kara physically look older despite their—in human terms—insane longevity. “There wasn’t anything we could do, you wouldn’t let us, insisted death was a part of life and that it was time for yours. You said you loved us, that you couldn’t have wished for a better life.” Tears well up in Astra’s eyes even as she smiles at the memory, and she nearly chokes when she says, “And then you told us to let you go.”

She aches to take Astra into her arms, to comfort her in any way possible, but knows it to be futile. Alex feels helpless standing here, and she acutely wishes she’d waited to have this conversation with Kara there, so they could at least find comfort in each other.

Much to her surprise, Astra barks out a laugh through her tears, “Do you know how stupid that is? You told a group of Kryptonians and half-Kryptonians to let you go, when we had plenty of ways to prolong your life. You just had to be the stubborn human.”

“And you just had to be the stubborn Kryptonian, it seems,” Alex shoots back with some light semblance of amusement, storing the remark about half-Kryptonians in the back of her mind, intending to ask about that later if necessary. The argument regarding her life was burning hot on her tongue, and Alex has the sense they’ve argued about this particular topic a lot. “You let my body go, but you didn’t let me go. Don’t you know to honor a dying woman’s last wish?”

Something explodes behind Astra’s eyes, a blazing fire evaporating the tears. That seems to have struck a nerve. “I would never dishonor you or your memory, I did let you go!”

“If you let me go, then why am I here?”

Astra’s jaw clenches harshly, those muscles standing out starkly, making her jawline that much more pronounced. Those clear lines in her face have always been attractive, and Alex couldn’t remember just how strong that attraction is when it’s not inhibited by denial and restraint, but she’s very aware of it now. Her jaw relaxes then, and something akin to guilt overtakes her features instead. “I tried to let you go, we all did, but the pain didn’t dull. It was just as unbearable four years later as it was the moment you died, so when Kara proposed we bring you back... We collaborated to do so. With her intelligence and my experience we made it happen, but it turns out we—I underestimated the capacity needed for human memories.” She scrunches up her nose, “Your brains are so awfully inefficient, it’s no wonder you’re all so forgetful.”

The familiar condescension towards humans almost makes Alex smile if it weren’t for that burning need to defend herself and her kind; clearly that didn’t part didn’t change in the decades that passed, for either of them. Bickering felt natural, even without her memories. “You’re lucky I don’t remember us being together, I’m sure I’d have plenty to retort.”

A huff. “You wish.”

Alex presses her lips together; she does wish, being able to remember that is. “If it’s a capacity problem, why not transfer those memories to a separate storage unit and attach that to me? Surely technology’s base principles haven’t changed so much that there isn’t some equivalent of a USB port.” It’s such a simple solution she doubts it’ll help at all, but she genuinely wants to know why something like that hasn’t.

As expected, Astra shakes her head. “The transfer of information from your brain to a digital platform was a one-time opportunity, it’s incapable of handling a second transfer. I’m afraid the memories are just lost data at this point.”

Despite it being anticipated, Alex still feels the disappointment settle in the pit of her stomach. It’s one thing to suspect you’ll never be able to remember, but it’s quite another to have it confirmed. Part of her wants to be mad at Astra as she’s admitted to this being a mistake she’s responsible for, however that’s the exact same reason why she can’t bring herself to be mad: it was a mistake, nothing purposeful. She can see plainly that Astra already blames herself for it, that self-loathing she is intimately familiar with, or at least used to be. Alex feels much more at peace with herself now, and she’s not sure if it’s a result of her death or her life.

Which brings her back to not having her memories and having no clue what the rest of her life looked like. The only thing she is certain of is that she spent the last part of her life with Astra, though she doesn’t know to which capacity exactly. The mentioned half-Kryptonians could be Kara’s as much as they could be theirs, or maybe even Clark’s.

She glances down at Astra—at her hands, more specifically. The left one, the one she’d reached out with earlier, is as bare as she thought it to be, as bare as her own are, but the right one not so much. There, on her ring finger, she wears a fairly simple band. Alex can’t quite make out the material from here, silver or platinum or white gold or something not of this world, but it’s polished and there is an engraving embedded in it, Kryptonese symbols, and she thinks she can make out the word ‘love’. It’s not hard to imagine it being a wedding ring.

Alex looks back up to find Astra looking down at it then, having followed her gaze, and smiling softly at it before their eyes meet again. Checking whether or not it’s a wedding ring feels futile now. Instead she asks, “When did we get married?”

“February 8th, 2023.” At Alex’s calculating and then somewhat puzzled look, Astra laughs. “Yes, that’s exactly seven years after you stabbed me. But it’s also the day you saved Kara from the Black Mercy, the day I came to you for help.” She smiles somewhat wistfully. “Picking a date was quite the endeavor. Kara and your mother insisted on helping with the wedding planning, which included badgering us about it every waking moment. I think you picked the date just to shock them into silence. It was quite effective.”

In spite of herself, Alex huffs out a laugh. “I bet. Their faces must have been priceless.”

“Oh yes, quite so. If I’d known in advance I would have prepared a camera, that would have gone into the book.”

She almost groans. “There’s a book?”

“Of course. Did you think Eliza would let you off without a photo book for your wedding?”

No, Alex supposes not. In hindsight that is probably a good thing, for now she’ll at least be able to know what it was like, even when she can’t remember it. She never thought she’d be grateful for her mother’s stubborn insistence, but then she also never thought she’d be turned into an amnesiac artificial intelligence. Will she ever be able to fully wrap her brain around that one?

Probably not.

With a sigh she pushes that conflict back down, at least for now. She knows it’ll end whatever pleasant conversation they are having right now, and there are too many things she still wants to know before then. Alex has her suspicions of course, but mere suspicion won’t cut it. “So... Those half-Kryptonians you mentioned?”

“Ours,” Astra confirms, continuing. “And Kara’s, and Clark’s. Alura and Lucy were the only ones to decide against their own children, but with how many the young ones have produced it hardly makes a difference.”

Alex nods attentively; Clark being the farm boy he is she wasn’t surprised to hear he wound up with a big family. Kara has been a bit more of a mystery, Alex could imagine her sister getting only one as per Kryptonian standards, but a big family was easily as likely. She’s actually kind of happy to hear it turned out this way.

But then the rest of that sentence processes, and Alex is right back to being confused. “Wait, did you just say _Alura_ and Lucy? As in your twin sister, Alura?”

There’s this realization lighting up behind Astra’s eyes, like this lightbulb that went off, remembering that’s something Alex wouldn’t remember either. “Oh. Yes, the very same. Her pod landed not too long after Myriad’s activation and destruction.”

“And you don’t, like, hate her?” Alex isn’t actually certain of what Myriad is, hasn’t heard the name before, but she can hazard a guess that it had to do with the transmitter Astra placed the night she (apparently hadn’t) killed her. However she does remember that Astra hadn’t sounded particularly happy when talking about Alura before.

“No, I haven’t in a long time. Though I could do without her teasing in regards to me being old.”

There’s a scowl on her face that Alex can’t help but snicker at a little bit. “How old are you anyway?”

That scowl only deepens. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to ask a lady her age?”

“Oh, so you went from a dangerous alien general to a _lady_ , I see how it is,” Alex grins as she says this, after which she schools her features. “Alright, Lady.. uh..” She pauses, realizing she has no idea what her last name is. Even then, who took whose name when they married? Did they keep their own? Did they hyphenate?

“In-Ze,” Astra supplies, and she lights up somewhat. “You took my name, wished to preserve that piece of Kryptonian culture for me.”

The corners of her lips curl up unbidden, a warmth blooming in her chest at the news and sight of the effect it has on Astra. Alex has no doubt that smile is why she decided that was the best move when it came to name changes. Alex In-Ze. It does have a pretty good ring to it. When she notices her own expression she clears her throat, straightening her face once again. “Lady In-Ze, I don’t need to know your age to know you’re a cougar.”

Astra gasps in mock offense, “How dare you? I have the physicality of a 49 year old human, you on the other hand...”

“Have the physicality of a 27 year old at the moment,” she interjects, gesturing at herself. “I’m also an artificial intelligence now. I could just look into the databases to find out how old you are, I’m sure that data is registered somewhere.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re not even connected to the mainframe.”

“Try me.”

Astra’s eyes are narrowed at her, like she’s trying to gauge her capabilities by just looking at the interface. With a shrug that says ‘I warned you’ Alex actually does try to access other systems, reaching out to see how far she can get, though she truthfully doesn’t have much clue what she’s doing. She finds quickly that it’s just like thinking, like trying to remember but having to move towards the memories rather than call upon them, and she finds at the very least the laptop that is connected to her.

The only account on it is registered to Astra’s name.

Alex hums in thought, wondering aloud. “I wonder what your password is. I’m sure it can’t be that hard to figure out...”

Astra’s eyes dart over to the open laptop, noticing the screen has been activated by Alex’s interference. Huffing, she turns back to Alex. “Fine. Alura and I were both born 129 years ago, is that what you want to know? Are you satisfied now?”

Stopping her prying, Alex lays off the laptop, grinning victoriously. Maybe this whole state of being wasn’t so bad. “Very.” With that out of the way, she chooses to get back to the point. “How many half-Kryptonians are there exactly?”

“Eighteen of them, spanning over two generations. Only two of them are of our blood, they’ve chosen to take their time and make the most of their longevity.” A warm smile blooms. “We’ve taught them well.”

Alex blinks. She’d revel with Astra in how well their own kids turned out if she wasn’t so distracted by that inane high number. “So Kara and Clark are responsible for sixteen of them? Sixteen?!”

A nod. “With number seventeen on the way. Clark’s oldest is pregnant as we speak.”

“Wow,” she breathes out. “That’s...”

“A lot?” Astra grins. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to meet them all at once. Make no mistake, I love all of our niblings, but chaos tends to ensue when all of them are together.”

That’s not hard to imagine, especially not if they’re close to each other, which she suspects they are. Hell, she can imagine just their own two could get themselves into plenty of trouble if they’re anything like herself and Kara, perhaps even more. “Did all of them inherit powers?”

“Yes. It appears the genes responsible are dominant traits, though we’re not entirely sure which ones to look at as of yet.”

Alex nods, her inner scientist promptly running rampant with potential hypotheses. Probability-wise the next generation is bound to have someone with less or no powers, provided it’s actually the genes causing it rather than some Kryptonian enzyme working as a catalyst. In the case of the latter it’s quite possible their bloodline will never be without powers completely.

An amused chuckle breaks Alex out of her thought process, refocusing on Astra who is looking at her with a fond smile. “I’ve missed that look. Not even death can temper your burning desire to find answers.”

“So is that why I’m back? Because I’m a valuable asset when it comes to Kryptonian research?”

“What? No! No such thing. I told you, Alex, we missed you. That is why we brought you back.” Shocked, offended, a little desperate.

She understands the desire, she does. If Alex could have her father back (did she get her father back? Alura is alive, why couldn’t Jeremiah be? A lot can happen in a few decades) like this she’d likely have tried the same. But still. “Against my wishes. What am I supposed to do now, Astra? I’m supposed to be dead.”

Astra takes a deep breath. “I know, Alex, I know.”

“You really don’t, though.”

“Do you think I was happy when they brought me back from the dead?” Her voice is sharp, but Astra looks more pained than she looks angry, truthfully. “After all I’d done, the things I thought I could never atone for, perhaps still haven’t atoned for, I didn’t think I deserved to live. I didn’t want to live, but you changed that. You gave me a second chance at life, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.”

But Alex shakes her head. “It’s not the same. You came back inside your body, I’m nothing more than a conscience, Astra! This isn’t life!” Not being able to move from her spot, being dependent on whether or not other people turn on the device in which she is trapped, frankly solely being there for people to talk to rather than her being able to think and act for herself... It’s the furthest thing from being alive. It’s being a tool.

Astra seems to catch onto that unsaid meaning though, that brief spark of responsive anger dulling to an understanding. Alex supposes their near-flawless understanding of each other has remained their strongest point throughout the years, only developing further through getting to know each other. “Technology has come a long way, brave one. You won’t be confined here, you’ll have full autonomy. I can’t give you a body, it’s prohibited, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t... alternatives.”

Alex eyes her suspiciously. “What alternatives?”

“Let me show you.”

\-----

Allowing Astra to show her something evidently meant being carried around in some future equivalent of a USB stick, temporarily shutting down, and being uploaded into whatever device she’d put Alex into. Whatever it was, it had put her inside the DEO’s training room, which evidently hadn’t changed much. Or at least, upon first sight not much appears to have changed, she rather doubts they haven’t had any upgrades in six decades. Wall panels, perhaps?

Alex walks towards the control panel, inspecting it before she realizes what she’s doing. It takes her a few seconds, looking at the interface and not noticing anything particular about it, that she realizes she just moved throughout the room, freely.

Would this be one of the alternatives Astra spoke of?

It’s only then that her wife (it’s strange to think of Astra that way, but it’s a strangely welcome change Alex doesn’t mind getting used to) conveniently shows up, entering the room in some bizarre bright green fencing suit, minus head coverage.

Snorting, Alex asks, “What the hell are you wearing?”

Astra, looking entirely too dignified in such a ridiculous looking thing, shrugs a shoulder. “A sensation suit,” she answers simply, before putting on some sort of tinted glasses. Alex would make the comparison to sunglasses if it weren’t for what happened next: the glasses started changing, expanding and reshaping, seemingly further covering Astra’s eyes, closer to the skin, until they just... disappeared.

What the hell?

“It’s not the latest model,” Astra continues, making her way to the center of the room, “But it’s the only one Winn was able to reinforce with nth metal.” A grin creeps up on her. “Suffice it to say I’ve broken plenty of these before we got our hands on that particular material. You’ve forced me to use my powers plenty of times.”

“Sounds like cheating to me.”

“On the contrary, you encouraged me to stop holding back.” A few swift gestures, and Astra’s strange suit has taken the shape of the Kryptonian suit that Alex remembers seeing her in, before. There is no discernible difference between her now and her back then, in Kara’s living room, on the rooftop, and presumably the many times they have faced each other right here both before and after they got together.

There’s a jolt of excitement that accompanies the prospect of facing her, both familiar and new, and Alex bounces on her feet a little before heading to the platform in the center. “Alright, so how does this work? I’m guessing this is some sort of virtual reality?”

“Something like that,” Astra nods, approaching her. “My avatar can touch you, and because of the sensation suit you can touch me in turn.”

Indeed, this time when she reaches out to Alex’s hand, she is capable of taking a hold of it. Alex feels it, and the twitch of her lips betrays Astra feels it too.

Astra raises them to about chest level and encloses her other hand around Alex’s as well, moving with an air of caution. When Alex shows no signs of being uncomfortable she takes it a step further—literally, closes the distance between them and joins their foreheads together, eyes closed.

Alex’s close in response; this is actually quite nice.

Astra sighs softly. “It’s not perfect. I can’t feel this, or anything you do to my head. It shouldn’t be long however, not with the rate your human technology advances.” For once the specification of it being human doesn’t sound condescending, instead having a tinge of wonder to it. She pulls back then, a challenge written on her face as she puts some space between them. “So keep in mind you can’t punch me in the face. Yet.”

She scoffs out a laugh, “As satisfying as that could be, I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem.”

It briefly crosses Alex’s mind that being unable to punch her in the face would also mean being incapable of kissing her properly, but she quickly puts that thought aside. She could feel Astra’s forehead resting against hers even if Astra couldn’t feel it, which should mean Astra could at least kiss her if she wanted to.

And also that Astra could punch her in the face.

That realization makes her frown and add, “No punching my face either. Let’s keep this fair, yeah?”

“Of course. Now,” Astra says, taking on a fighting stance Alex doesn’t recognize, smiling, “Are you up for this?”

“You bet.”

They waste no time circling each other, the moment of affirmation marks the start of their sparring and they go in on each other without restraint. At first Alex fights too much like a human, like she still has a physical body with limited capabilities, but with Astra not holding back, using her powers and encouraging her to use being a digital entity to her advantage even as she’s pinned Alex down in the first few rounds, Alex quickly learns to embrace this new state of being. She can match Astra’s speed, can go even faster with her advanced processors, though her power is still something Alex can’t match.

Meanwhile Astra tells her that this is something they used to do a lot once Alex got older. First she’d adamantly resisted using virtual reality, as stubbornly as she’d stuck to doing field work for the DEO, but she’d given in eventually when her body noticeably no longer cooperated as quickly or fiercely as she’d needed it to. At first she hadn’t liked it, insisted it wasn’t the same, but the longer this went on, the more she started to enjoy herself ‘like in the old days’.

They continued for many rounds, eyes gleaming as they challenged each other, neither of them weighed down by exhaustion for hours on end. Unlike back then Alex could no longer get tired, may it be physically or mentally, and a Kryptonian’s stamina is impressive to say the very least. But they’re not invincible, especially not when they do use their powers, and for the first time it is a winded Astra that has to put a stop to it after ending up on the ground.

Alex helps her up, and they settle on a bench on the side as Astra drinks some water and catches her breath. It doesn’t take them long to lean against each other, Alex’s head on her shoulder, something Astra can feel even when she can’t feel her own head resting against Alex’s. As they sit there like that, satisfied, Alex can’t help but think that maybe this isn’t so bad after all. This is good, and with the promise of more advanced technology in the future it will only get better.


End file.
